Savings and Loan Panel Defers Decision on Frederick Agency

Paschal, Jan, THE JOURNAL RECORD

The competition for deposits is at the heart of a controversy that
refuses to go away over whether a Texas savings and loan association
can operate an agency in Frederick, Okla., a town of about 6,100
people, located 15 miles north of the Texas border.

In Frederick, the Jim Roberts Agency of the Vernon Savings and
Loan Association competes directly with a branch of Duncan Savings
and Loan Association.

But the issue goes beyond the city limits of Frederick, the
Oklad Loan Board decided Thursday.

For that reason, the board deferred a decision on a proposed
rule that could put Vernon Savings and Loan Association's Oklahoma
agency, known as the Jim Roberts Agency, out of business.

"The way I understand it, if the rule says they can't take
deposits, they'd be out of business," Robert Y. Empie, Oklahoma
banking commissioner and chairman of the savings and loan board,
said Thursday.

Empie advised the board to wait until the Oklahoma Legislature
convenes next month to issue any regulation, in order to avoid
having to defend the legal status of an emergency rule.

"I'd rather play it safe," Empie said.

The Oklahoma Bankers Association and the Oklahoma League of
Savings Institutions, two groups that often are on opposite sides of
an issue, banded together in August to ask the savings and loan
board to write a rule that would define a thrift's agency as an
entity that cannot take deposits.

The bankers and the thrift executives have said, in legal briefs
filed with the state savings and loan board, that they believe the
Texas thrift's agency in Frederick is acting beyond its legal scope.

Widespread, aggressive advertising by the Texas thrift in
Oklahoma newspapers has rankled the executives of Oklahoma-based
banks and thrifts.

The ads have not always pointed out that Vernon Savings and Loan
Association of Vernon, Texas, operates an agency - and not a branch
- at Frederick, according to Mary Beth Guard, attorney for the
Oklahoma Banking Department and the state savings and loan board.

It was 1965 when Vernon Savings and Loan Association obtained a
license to open the agency in Frederick, after the Oklahoma Savings
and Loan Board had rejected its application for a branch license.

The legal problems stem from the vagueness of savings and loan
board records over whether the Texas thrift was given permission 21
years ago to accept deposits at its agency office in Frederick.

"It seems to me," Empie said, "that accepting a payment on a
share account would be the equivalent of a deposit. But that was
before savings and loans could offer checking accounts."

The proposed rule would distinguish between a branch of a
savings and loan association and an agency.

"I don't think it's a question of just Vernon and Tillman
County," Guard said. "I think Vernon, through its advertising, has
captured deposits from all over the state."

The competition from the Texas thrift is not being taken lightly
in a time when many Oklahoma banks and savings and loan associations
are struggling for survival, the savings and loan board was told
Thursday by Laura Pringle, vice president and general counsel for
the Oklahoma Bankers Association.

"These are unusual times in Oklahoma," Pringle said. "If this
isn't a case when you can adopt a rule when the Legislature is not
in session, I don't ka0092 ' g jr-loc-12-12-80-firestone By Patti
Case A six-months notice to close the local Firestone Tire & Rubber
Co. plant will be issued next week, as promised, in response to the
rejection of an $8 million concessions package Thursday by the
International Rubber Workers policy committee, according to Bob
Troyer, Firestone spokesman.

A ray of hope for the Oklahoma City plant remains, however,
according to union and company officials.

The policy committee, which met Thursday in Cleveland, voted 6
to 5 to reject proposed cuts of about $3. …

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